Purple-Based Foliage
- To: Multiple recipients of list <i*@rt66.com>
- Subject: Purple-Based Foliage
- From: S* M* <7*@CompuServe.COM>
- Date: Wed, 8 Jan 1997 21:02:17 -0700 (MST)
Mike Lowe wrote:
: That purple based foliage confers a survival/reproductive advantage is
: nearly a given. Years of anecdotal evidence is overwhelmingly in support of
: this conclusion.
: I believe we are missing the boat when we assume that the advantage lays in
: hardiness/cold hardiness. There is a 'survival' advantage conferred by the
: purple pigmentation versus lack of this pigmentation, however, this
: advantage has only a secondary linkage to temperature.
I hope I didn't mislead anyone because we are NOT assuming that the advantage is
cold-hardiness -- just collecting data that will enable us to consider that
factor, among others. When setting up a statistical test, it is necessary to
formulate the hypothesis to be tested. You may be able to make an educated
guess but you don't "know" in advance how it's going to come out. I'm sorry
if I gave the wrong impression -- I guess I'm too accustomed to discussing
statistics with statisticians and iris with irisarians!
In this case, we'll be collecting enough information to test several things. If
cold hardiness is indeed an important factor, the ratio should be significantly
different in the different zones. If the 'survival' advantage exists but is
unrelated to temperature, the significant relationship should be one of duration
in the garden. If it's actually an evolutionary advantage or something that
hybridizers are (perhaps unconsciously) selecting for, the significant factor
should be the age of the cultivar. Etc. And we need lots of observations from
different places to be able to distinguish the sometimes-subtle differences.
: Kitchen table chemistry (at the most a Com. college chem lab) should
: conclusively show whether the purple iris pigmentation exhibits activity.
Which comes first, Mike? The volunteer(s) or details on what is needed?
Normally, I LOVE kitchen table chemistry experiments -- but this time I'd better
pass 'cause I expect to be busy analyzing data.
Sharon McAllister
73372.1745@compuserve.com
